Speaking out about Common Core

If you have been out and about on Long Island over the past few months, chances are you have heard mothers and fathers speaking about Common Core education, and not in a favorable way. From nail salons to supermarkets, parents are up in arms about this federally funded and mandated education standard. So what is Common Core?

From its own website, common core is “designed to ensure students are prepared for today’s entry-level careers, freshman-level college courses and workforce training programs. The Common Core focuses on developing the critical-thinking, problem-solving and analytical skills students will need to be successful. Forty-four states, the District of Columbia, four territories and the Department of Defense Education Activity have voluntarily adopted and are moving forward with the standards.”

This rosy painted picture is not representative of what Common Core means for our kids, and some experts, candidates, teachers and parents took a few moments to share their thoughts with me.

Mary Calamia, an outspoken critic and licensed clinical social worker, has traveled the country speaking against the Common Core standards, which she says takes “education out of the hands of teachers, and places it in the hands of ‘educrats.’” She argues that Common Core places all students in one box, and their developmental progress is left out of the equation. Mary says that Common Core education doesn’t take into consideration each student as an individual and causes them to all learn the same – something that isn’t natural.

She has met hundreds of parents and students who are suffering from undue stress and anxiety due to the nature and consequences of the harsh testing. She writes about a “fourth grader who vomits ever morning, certain that he is the stupidest kid in the class, and a six-year-old so nervous about doing his homework he scratches the skin off his face whenever he sits down after school to start it.”

States Common Core has been adopted

Mary argues that the stringent requirements and “one-method only” approach to teaching is fostering a generation of children who no longer look forward to learning, and now face it with dread. And I agree with her.

From experience, the work that my children are taking home doesn’t seem grade-level appropriate, is sadly not always written in proper English and forces kids into long diagrams and box charts to come up with answers we used to derive from a simple regrouping. My daughter certainly does fear the tests, which have consequences for “less than average” scores. Remedial classes and other methods are looming over her should she not answer in a manner that suits those grading.

But don’t take it from me. Good teachers are suffering because of the Common Core as well, dealing with increased stress and the possibility of losing their jobs – all because of the tests. Read what a well-respected teacher who wishes to remain anonymous said: “The biggest problem with the Common Core is that the standards are developmentally inappropriate, particularly for younger students. No good teacher is against critical thinking. But children are being asked to do things that their brains are not physically ready to do. And teachers are being forced to throw information at students that they aren’t ready for, with their jobs depending on it. It’s like a government agency mandating that all six-month olds need to learn to walk. Then when they can’t do it, the government calls the babies failures and says their parents are inept for not being able to teach them.”

And from Gina Lollo, a mother enveloped in the fight against this boxed-in form of learning: “Our public school system is being dismantled by corporations and big business for power and profits. Children and teachers are being unfairly placed under enormous amounts of stress to perform on tests which are corruptly stacked against them. The standards themselves have never been tested, why are we subjecting a generation of children to them? This is a giant experiment that our children need not be a part of. It has been said over and over again by educators and child psychologists that the standards are not developmentally appropriate, yet no one is listening. By refusing these tests, we can send a strong message: We are standing up, not giving up.”

Refusing the tests? That seems to be a parent’s only recourse right now. Mary Calamia spoke with me about what we can do to stand up and stop putting our kids under undue stress. “NY isn’t a referendum state, so the only thing we can do is opt our children out of the tests. Common Core thrives on information –the reason they are testing our children is for the data. They need the data to justify the program, so it stands to reason that the best way to put this to bed is to stop it at its core and starve them of the information.”

Parents wanting to opt their children out of the testing are facing many obstacles, from harassment by administrators, to threats of consequences for their kids, but parents aren’t backing down. The opt-out movement has been garnering mass media attention.

All of this information is overwhelming, and doesn’t even scratch the surface. If you want a quick tutorial on Common Core education, and information on how to let your kids opt out of testing, you can visit the New York State Allies for Public Education’s website and watch the short videos. And weigh in below on your thoughts about Common Core.

Tracy Diaz is a relationship manager at Town & Country Dental Studios. Follow her on Twitter @tracybeanz.